Comments for Ghost in the Pixel

Comment on The value of visual design by joffley

joffley — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 10:37:50 +0000

I totally agree with all your points here. Perhaps one aspect you’ve missed is the importants of the visual design element in building and communicating the brand of a product — another vital part of product design.

(And I think you’re missing an ‘f’ in ‘efficiency’, too! ;)

Comment on Intimacy and arrogance in UX by vkux

vkux — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 08:22:52 +0000

I think you hit the nail on the head..
There is a fine line between trust and distrust. And any service, especially a service like Path – a social network which calls itself “the home” of social networks – can’t afford to make a mistake like that.
“Facebook is building cities, LinkedIn is building workplaces and Path is building homes”

Now, was Path doing anything wrong by uploading personal contacts to their servers?
hmm..maybe I can see a few people getting uncomfortable with the idea of it

But, did Path commit suicide by uploading contacts *without letting users know what was happening*?
Absolutely, yes! I know Dave Morin came out with an apology saying that the company is using this information only to better friend suggestions..but its still enough to throw users off their network (look at you Uday! :)

–
I think there is a bigger problem in this address-gate.
If I recall correctly, Path is not the only app to push address book details to their servers. Foursquare, Foodspotting, Whatsapp, Beluga were all guilty of it too (Facebook and Twitter too, if I’m not wrong)

I think the fundamental problem lies on Apple’s end.
If Apple can have permission dialogue boxes for location services and push notifications, why not have one for contacts? Contacts are obviously very private to the user, and so often being misused by companies (haha.. i like how you call those startup dudes, douchebags – a very apt description) . I know Android has a similar implementation. I hate dialogue boxes myself, but recent trends for this scenario justify the use of one?

To be honest, I’ve stopped caring where, when and how my information is being shared on all these channels. I am so heavily invested in google, apple, facebook, mint, simple, dropbox – that it is too late now to back out. As we speak, I’m uploading all my previous year’s tax documents to dropbox :) fml
So it would affect me the least (mentally) if my contact’s details were shared on Path’s server.

However, shit would hit the fan if my pictures from Sat night were publicly shared on Facebook! :)
(btw, did you see the new Facebook mobile auto-uploader?!?! scarrry! )

Comment on What is an educated designer? by jackmoffett

jackmoffett — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:59:48 +0000

Interesting thoughts, Uday. It’s not for everyone, of course, but I think there is no better way to retain the title of “educated designer” than teaching.

Comment on In defense of chrome by Desiree Sy

Desiree Sy — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:50:03 +0000

I’d add one more design argument for UI chrome: when application controls should be persistent, it separates UI from the objects that UI acts upon. Many applications are adding UI controls that float on top of the main application view (for example, in both OS X and iOS, the new QuickTime floats the play/pause controls over the picture of the movie). Although this does maximize the size of the application view, and generally isn’t too undiscoverable, it’s really irritating because of the interference with the image. I don’t want to have to make all those extra taps to pause playback without seeing all those controls floating on top.

Comment on In defense of chrome by jeromecovington

jeromecovington — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:39:52 +0000

Hi funny you should mention the importance of chrome as indicative of a components usage, AND ProTools in the same post. I have done a lot of mixing and composing in Ableton Live (which arguably has a VERY spare UI) but am seriously considering switching to Reason, which actually strives to recreate the physical look and feel of audio components.

My reason is that with such a diversity of extensions, plugins etc. available for audio work, it is helpful to use a UI that will give an indication as to the device’s aesthetic and ideal use.

Oh yeah, websites/webapps too!

Comment on In defense of chrome by benbminnich

benbminnich — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:15:24 +0000

Excellent article articulating why chrome is a good thing to enhance the user experience and provide helpful clues to an interfaces’ anchor points to navigate it successfully.

Windows 8 is a great design, but I think it tries to much to be completely sterile to appease everyone. I am looking forward to see if Microsoft will allow designers the ability to add some flourishes that break the sometimes monotony of “authentically digital” or if they will saddle them with same UI components that they have now.

We can only try and see if we as the designer/developer can break it I guess.

Comment on Why designers don’t like A/B testing by Keith

Keith — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:25:46 +0000

I don’t have time for a response as verbose as the ones above, but would like to point out just a couple of items. Any test is only as good as the person preparing it, they can be skewed and abused and bent to agendas. The key to a quality A/B test is measuring behavior and the components that are being measured should be provided by trained designers. There is no reason why the two comparison elements can’t be well designed.

Comment on Why designers don’t like A/B testing by elliottw

elliottw — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:30:58 +0000

I’m thinking the real disagreement here is in parts versus wholes. A/B testing is for testing parts of a website, but aspects such as grace and beauty are products of the whole being consistent throughout. Both have their place, and the interaction between the two should be a topic of discussion as apposed to a topic of debate where one is right and one is wrong.

I’m loving that these conversations are taking place though.

Comment on Why designers don’t like A/B testing by beyroutey

beyroutey — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:31:23 +0000

I found this discussion fascinating, and wrote a full response here: http://beyroutey.posterous.com/design-by-data-why-ab-and-intuitive-design-bo

Other comments have already covered that multivariate testing is possible in the A/B format. I think that misunderstanding contributes to a lot of the poor perceptions of A/B testing among designers.

But I also think there’s something deeper here: a reluctance on the part of designers to accept that designs need to be prototyped tens of times before the best one can be found. Good design is not purely a result of divine inspiration and tacit knowledge, but also of having tried lots of possibilities.

A/B testing helps filter out the solution-space once lots of possibilities have been generated, and to guide the decision process where many choices are arbitrary.

Comment on Why designers don’t like A/B testing by Badams

Badams — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:14:58 +0000

I think you’re missing the point about A/B tests somewhat. I’m an SEO and I can get a site to rank on page 1 of Google’s results for any number of keywords. However, if those keywords are sending traffic to the site that doesn’t convert, then I haven’t done by job properly.

The same applies to design. A website can have a lot of “beauty, elegance, charm, and grace” but if it’s not making the owner any money, the design isn’t doing its job.

Every month I make a report for my SEO clients that shows the results of my efforts, in painstaking detail, down to every keyword and how much money they made off of it. My work is 100% accountable.

Design is not quite so accountable. But with A/B and, esepcially, multivariate testing, it can become more accountable. Design elements can be proven to need improvement. I think that is first and foremost what designers feel uncomfortable with – their primarily emotion-driven discipline being exposed to data-driven accountability.

I do however think there’s a limit to how far A/B and MVT testing should go. The cohesion of the design should be protected, lest the site looks messy and disjointed.

But the client doesn’t necessarily care about that. It’s about the bottom line, after all. And think of some of the web’s biggest money making websites. Aesthetics isn’t very high on their list. (Amazon for example, not pretty but does it sell.)